Consumer appetite for access to information continues to grow along with growth of the Internet. Corresponding to such growth, new information is added to the Internet constantly. With respect to multimedia content in particular, much of this information comes at a significant cost in bandwidth.
Telephone dial-up service is being replaced with broader bandwidth systems such as satellite, digital subscriber line (DSL), and cable modem. Unfortunately, these systems are not presently available to a significant portion of the population. Moreover, acquisition and installation costs associated with these systems make them less appealing.
Accordingly, wireless connectivity is on the rise. Wireless systems may be deployed more rapidly with less cost than their wired counterparts. Systems using cellular phone technologies are directed at providing mobile wireless Internet connectivity. Unfortunately, such systems are bandwidth limited.
Alternatives to cellular telephone technologies are cellular architectures providing high speed, data only services. An example is Multi-channel, Multi-point Distribution Service (MMDS) being provided by Sprint. Benefits of wireless systems for delivering high-speed services include rapid deployment without overhead associated with installation of local wired distribution networks. Unfortunately, MMDS relies upon long range transmissions and a sophisticated customer premise installation.
What is needed is a fixed wireless solution with bandwidth comparable to DSL and cable modem technologies that is less complex to install and less costly. A mesh architecture and protocol serves these needs. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,682,382 to Shepard, a fixed wireless network is disclosed. In Shepard, the wireless network is based on a decentralized packet-radio concept using spread-spectrum technology for transmitting and receiving. Each station calculates a fixed pseudo-random schedule of transmit and receive opportunities for communication and listens for the same type of broadcast by other stations. Each station's schedule is in theory unique owing to its random or pseudo-random generation, so open spots in schedules may be found for communication opportunities by comparing such randomly or pseudo-randomly generated schedules. Only immediate neighbors for which a station will be in communication are made aware of such schedules. Accordingly, Shepard does not provide coordination of use of channel space and has limited ability to adjust for significant changes in traffic or load.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide increased coordination of channel space use to mitigate against interference with other nodes and to adjust for significant changes in load. Moreover, it would be desirable to locally coordinate such channel space use and provide dynamic allocation of channel space.